Original subtitles

MAN: (ON RADIO) The National Weather Service

has issued a fire weather message.

This is for the northern and interior Seward Peninsula.

Moderate to strong gusty winds

will increase tonight through Wednesday.

That's not gonna be any good.

And it says, "Red Flag Warning,"

means that conditions are occurring or will occur

which could lead to the development of large and dangerous fires.

Sounds like we're stuck at home.

-AGNES: Red flag. -Red flag.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

CHIP: Like, we're stuck at home.

-AGNES: Red flag. -Red flag, I know.

For three days.

I should go get firewood

and we should go get a couple of days' worth of something to eat.

-Either caribou, or a few ducks. -Yep.

NARRATOR: The Hailstone family spends their summer living in Kiwalik,

away from their home in their native village of Noorvik.

This nomadic lifestyle allows them to live off the land

and stockpile resources for the harsh winter ahead.

We got to start tying down the tents and the tepees

-and the kitchen. -Yeah.

We got to make sure everything is put up.

CHIP: We got 40-mile-an-hour winds

coming in for the next three days.

The next three days we're gonna need heat,

we're gonna need some fresh meat,

and we're gonna need to just basically secure our stuff.

These are tents. They can just blow away

and, um, they can end up in the river, they can end up in the willows.

They can end up destroyed. We gotta get busy.

That's really what we got to do. Ah!

You guys listen to the weather report?

We have a 40-mile-an-hour wind warning with gusts,

so we're gonna just hunker down for a couple days.

It ain't gonna be any good to go out in the ocean,

it ain't gonna be any good to, uh, have fires.

Probably ain't gonna be any good to fish right now,

'cause it's gonna be such a low tide with the north wind.

Me and Jon are gonna take off.

We're gonna go look for the ducks, geese, whatever's in the river.

-AGNES: Few more logs. -Yep, a few more logs.

And you ladies can just tidy up camp.

Anything that's loose and stuff has to be picked up.

Anything that's up on the rack up there,

that's gonna have to be nailed down or secured.

All right.

Well, I'm gonna go get ready for boating.

I gotta go get wood, I gotta go get meat.

They're gonna secure the camp around here

and make sure that everything's picked up and put away,

and nothing's gonna blow away.

'Cause, uh, we can't just

go to the store and replace things

and, uh, it's just on us.

-Carol. -CAROL: Yeah.

I'm gonna come in with these big rocks, okay?

-Yeah. -They're what I'm gonna be tying your tent down with.

(CAROL SPEAKING)

Yep, it's gonna get really windy here pretty soon.

I'm pretty much just gonna tie the whole tepee down

and prepare for the real high winds that are coming.

How fast is the wind gonna be?

It's gonna be like 35 to 45 miles per hour-gusts.

The cold is coming.

Almost like back to winter.

So I'm gonna use these right here

to hold you girls' tent down.

If it start to get funny or untied, you girls fix it

to where it won't come, just come off.

It should hold.

We have to always just be prepared

because once your shelter start blowing

it's pretty hard to keep all your stuff dry, clean, and together.

So we're just trying to make sure

we have food security, our shelter is secured

and, um, we have enough heat.

-There! -Now fix it here.

That should hold.

I'm gonna take the chainsaw for wood.

Looks like you're ready for geese and ducks.

Let's see what we can come home with.

I'm sure we can fill the boat with something.

Looks like the wind's already picking up.

It's kind of nasty.

We've gotten my son Jon to go boating with me today.

We've got firewood to collect

and we've got some meat to secure.

We know the weather's coming.

We know what to do to prepare for it and we get with it.

What'll kill ya isn't the weather,

it's not being prepared for it.

And if you don't prepare yourself

and you don't go get the things that you need before it happens,

you're gonna have to do it while it's happening,

and that's when you can get nailed.

GLENN: There's always lots to see out here.

There's work to do, but there's also just a lot to learn.

I'm getting ready to go out and cut some firewood

in a new area today.

The ice has just melted off the lake and broken up.

So I can use the canoe to get out

and access an area where I don't normally cut firewood in the winter...

And also go see how the fishing is

over on the other side of the lake.

I don't do much fishing all winter long,

but in the springtime, once the ice breaks up,

that's when the pike are spawning in the shallows.

A good time to go fishing.

Feels nice.

During the winter, I deplete the firewood close by my cabin.

I'm always cutting close by the cabin,

because I have to drag all the wood home in a sled.

This time of year, I can get out in the canoe

and I can access an area further away from my camp

so that I don't deplete the firewood right around camp.

Best thing about this time of year is

everything coming back to life after a long winter.

Great to be out canoeing again,

because it's a different way of getting around.

See the world from a different perspective.

Just looking along the shore.

Looks like some deadwood right up here.

Think I'll go ashore right around in here.

I've never cut firewood right here before.

I still use a lot of firewood in the summer and the winter, all seasons.

If I don't cook on the wood stove,

then I burn firewood outside when it gets too hot.

I have to burn an outdoor fire to cook

and that uses even more wood.

This is a twisted tree, like most of 'em out here,

which makes cutting harder.

'Cause the grain is not straight, the grain's spiral.

But that's the way it goes.

Things are twisted up here.

Drier wood actually produces more heat for the cabin,

because if you cut a green tree, it'll burn,

but it takes a lot of heat

just to evaporate the moisture out of it.

This is gonna provide me with heat.

I'll be able to cook my food on it.

I'll be able to heat hot water with it.

It's just converting it into another source of energy.

I'm gonna cut down another tree

and get another couple of logs.

JESSIE: This is Alaska, you know.

You're supposed to be free.

This is the last frontier. I'm gonna treat it like it.

NARRATOR: Along the Tanana River,

Jessie Holmes relies on fishing

to feed himself and his team of sled dogs.

With the chum salmon run in full swing,

Jessie must get his fishnet into the river,

or risk losing out on vital food and protein.

JESSIE: I see people got their nets out.

I can't just sit easy.

I need to catch some fish right now,

feed my dogs and feed myself.

I'm gonna go take a look at this net

and hope it's not in as bad of shape as I remember it is.

I got this old net, I'm not too excited about using it, you know,

but I'm gonna mend it and repair it

and make the best out of it.

Try to get the most life I can out of this.

So, there's no telling

how long this is gonna take me,

'cause this thing is in pretty bad shape.

But I'm that kind of person,

I won't throw something like this away.

It might not be perfect,

but you see there's still a lot of mesh left that can catch a lot of fish.

This is not something that I enjoy dealing with, fishnets.

It's a hell of a task for me to have to deal with on my own.

But sitting back at home talking about fishing doesn't catch fish.

Gonna get nothing if I don't try, so...

Getting out here, making the best out of what you got,

is what's gonna catch fish for me.

Like, a new net would be pretty nice probably.

I don't think I've ever had a new net.

I just use whatever I can get my hands on.

I'm all about not relying on others and relying on myself,

that's why I live this lifestyle.

This lifestyle, I value it.

It's important to me to be truly subsistence.

All right, so now I've got this net mended

'til the best of what I want to do it, you know?

The amount of time I have to spend on this project,

and it turned out a lot better

than I thought it was going to.

Actually looks like a fishnet again.

I think I'm gonna go right here, honestly.

Fishing around here goes on a schedule.

I have a 42-hour period to see what's out there in the water,

and with any hopes

there's still gonna be some king salmon out there.

Get a few kings put up, you know?

The net's going out pretty good.

Get this out of the way.

Get my buoy in there.

Damn.

I'd say this is good.

Went right into the eddy line, that's where I wanted to go.

It would be really ideal if the fish come through here good,

because it's right next to my fish camp.

Gotta make sure this net's not tangled up and snagged up,

so that it can get as much coverage...

And it looks like if these fish are comin' out of this eddy,

heading up towards here, that they'll come into here.

Well, things went good.

Not often you get so lucky.

I'm gonna leave it here, let it do its job

and hope there's some fish in there.

SUE: Mine is not to question why,

but to find the solution.

Thinking about it doesn't solve it,

getting in there does.

Great.

Like I didn't have enough problems.

The generator is down again.

-(CLICKS) -Boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh, golly.

Hey, this is me. Can anybody hear me?

Nope.

NARRATOR: A C-46 supply plane will soon arrive in Kavik,

bringing Sue Aikens new equipment

and 12,000 pounds of food.

With her generator down,

Sue is unable to communicate with the pilot

and restoring power is a priority.

SUE: One of the biggest factors

to getting Kavik back up and running for business, food.

(CLATTERS)

Because of the accident,

when we went from winter to spring-summer,

nobody was here to run the gens to keep the food frozen.

It all went bad.

All the food got thrown away.

Winds are picking up.

I've got the plane coming with everything on it.

And I can't tell him he's got a 20-mile-an-hour crosswind.

Got to have power. It's just that simple.

Jesse, ya in the shop?

-JESSE: Yeah. -All right.

Gonna kick over the 40.

Give it a second.

-(WHIRRS) -(MOTOR STARTS)

(REVVING)

(MOTOR STOPS)

Damn it. Motherfucker.

(SUE SPEAKING)

Okay, you want me to grab that?

-SUE: Yeah, I can't lift that high. -Okay.

SUE: Careful, that pipe might be hot.

(JESSE GROANS)

Obviously taped it shut for the snow,

and the minute you do it and you didn't check everything, guess who's at fault?

Little bit of carbon maybe.

Oh, yeah.

SUE: Let's go and try this again.

Press your yellow and then wait.

Hopefully, this will be better than the last time.

-Let's go take a look. -JESSE: All right.

SUE: We're gonna go check the volts and hertz metres

and it gives you an idea

of where that generator is running. It's the blood pressure.

All right. So here you go.

-It's at 117, 18 over 61. -Mmm.

-Not perfect, well within the guidelines. -Okay.

-(CLICKS) -But here we go.

Radio check, Kavik.

When I do that, I can talk to the airplanes.

Now I can tell 'em,

"Hey, we've got some volatile winds out here."

NARRATOR: Since returning to camp after her injury,

Sue has worked to reopen Kavik as a fuel supply station.

But having lost thousands of dollars worth of food and freezers,

Kavik is not available yet for lodging,

which is Sue's main source of revenue for the year.

I've got the delivery sorted out.

It's... But it's gonna be coming in on the C-46.

Big old plane.

The delivery plane bringing in my goods,

this is a 1945 war bird, tail-dragging plane.

Twelve thousand pounds on it.

Bigger than your average bear.

That runway has to be good.

My limitations right now,

I cannot do the work on the Bobcat.

Are you comfortable getting in there

with what I showed you and how it works?

-Are you comfortable? -Yeah.

-All right. -Yeah, I should be able to do it.

All right, well, let's get you in.

I need that runway done right,

I need it done quick and I need it done now.

-Okay. -So I'll follow...

Yeah, if you wanna start 'er up and, uh, go with me,

-I'll show you exactly what I'm looking for. -Okay.

SUE: I've called my nephew in,

so I can get help getting these chores done.

Once I make that committed choice that I need help,

I've got to get somebody out here and that's just the way it is,

then I don't dwell on that.

I dwell on, "Okay, what can we do together? What can we accomplish?

"How can I make him go do something else

"while I can do something over here?"

Getting the food, getting the freezers.

Absolutely the biggest piece,

the last piece in making Kavik open for business again.

GLENN: Time passes slowly.

Things change slowly, but they continue to change.

This time of year, the pike are spawning in the shallows.

There's a grassy area just up around the corner where I might find some.

I haven't caught a pike yet this year.

Never know exactly what you're gonna find,

but I'm hoping for some good fishing today.

This is one of my favourite spots, right in where these trees are.

Living out here, you got to learn a lot

about what's going on at different places at different times.

One thing I've learned is that if I want to get a fish at this time of year,

I go over to this inlet.

Fish close to the grass, that's where the pike are spawning right now.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

There's a big one right here.

There's a real fat pike right here,

I just saw it right beside the canoe.

I see one right there.

Yep, yep.

Let's see if I can get him interested in this.

There's one chasing it.

Whoop, whoop, whoop.

Yep, I got it.

I got a pike hooked on here.

Oh, it's a nice, big one, pulling me out.

It's a nice, big pike.

I got to be careful. I don't want this one to get away.

Got to watch out for those...

Got to watch out for those teeth.

Pike have big teeth.

Here. Got it!

Look at that fish.

Wow.

Ah! That's gonna be lunch and dinner.

CHIP: We're not quitters. We don't slack.

We bend with the times, we have to adapt.

(JON SPEAKING)

(CHIP SPEAKING)

Me and Jon are going out,

trying to get a little bit of meat put up,

get a little bit of firewood.

We've got a pretty strong wind already, maybe 25 miles an hour.

We can already see the white caps,

so going up and down the river

isn't a very good idea here pretty soon.

We got a stronger wind coming over the next few days

and we want to be a little more prepared than we are,

and so we're trying to beat this.

Once we get it down, we'll be good,

but we ain't got it down yet.

I'm gonna go off over here and go get a log.

JON: Okay.

I'm gonna go see if I can score some birds with the shotgun or .22.

There you go.

We got through to Egg Island, where we go pick a lot of eggs and see a lot of birds.

So I'm gonna try and go and sneak over

and if I can't get close enough with the shotgun,

I'll use the .22 for a little longer range.

Let's go do some bird hunting.

It's not the ideal hunting conditions because it's really windy.

I see geese out here.

(GUNSHOT)

(SPEAKING)

(BIRD CALLS)

(GUNSHOTS)

Aw, damn.

Aw, damn wind.

Took a few shots. They're all misses.

It's kinda hard shooting in this wind.

Even my hat keeps trying to fly off.

So I'm just gonna take a walk.

See if we can get some of these at the point.

Everything here doesn't want to die.

It doesn't give itself up easily.

Usually, there's a chase you have to get into.

You have to go chase them down if you really want them.

I see an eider over here.

It's kinda close to the edge. Looks like I'll be able to go

and get it if I can get close enough.

(GUNSHOT)

I got him.

I got him.

I got the eider with a .22.

He was too far for the shotgun, but...

He's out here floating. Let's go grab him.

Right on. A common eider.

Whoo!

Well, got one king eider, not bad.

Got it with the .22, it's kind of too far with the shotgun.

Kinda scared everything off the island, so...

Head back down to the boat and see if I can see anything on the way back.

Getting pretty windy. It's gonna get dark and cold soon,

so I'll be on my way back home.

My dad's going to be happy. My sisters will be happy.

GLENN: Experience, gaining knowledge,

learning how to do things more efficiently.

That's what it's about.

I just gotta load up the firewood.

I got considerably more wood here than I could fit

in my little sled that I pull home in the winter.

I'll be able to bring it all in one load with this canoe.

The canoe allows me to get out a little further away

than I would normally go to cut firewood.

I can get it back easier, so I can go a little further.

I got more than twice of what I'd fit in my sled.

Nice little pile of firewood.

So I got some materials here to build a friction fire.

It's just a little breezy out here for this.

I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it.

This is just a fungus, grows on certain trees,

and I'm just using it in order to make a little nest here.

It will allow a small ember to grow larger

and then I can add other materials to it

and eventually get a fire, hopefully.

Technique I'm gonna try right now is a bow drill.

It's a very small bow that I made,

very compact, very small spindle.

It drills a hole, which you start with a knife.

It drills further into the wood

and the friction produces smoke.

Two pieces of poplar wood rubbing together.

Uh. See smoke, that's good.

Good sign.

I've got a little ember.

(GROANS)

And I need it to grow big enough to actually get a flame.

It's real challenging in this wind,

but I'm gonna try and transfer it into this fungus here.

(SIGHS) Come on.

It's looking good.

(SNIFFLES) Getting more smoke.

There it goes.

Fire. Yeah!

Look at that.

Time to cook my fish.

There's a considerable amount of food here.

Look at that fish.

It's all about taking advantage of the opportunities

and in order to take advantage of opportunities,

you have to learn the country and you have to learn where things are happening

and when they're happening at.

There's a time and a place for everything

and if you miss it, you're out of luck.

You got to be on the ball. You got to know where to go and when to go there.

Mmm.

Tasty pike.

JESSIE: I try to set my mentality up to get it done.

If I set a goal, I have to do it.

Load up, buddy.

NARRATOR: In Nenana, the chum salmon run has begun.

Jessie has returned to check the net

in hopes of harvesting enough fish

to feed himself and his dogs through the months ahead.

Fishing here is monitored in openers and closures.

You know, I only got 42 more hours of this period

that's gonna be open and I'd like to get some fish.

Catching some grass.

Over here, there might be one, or two. (STRAINS)

Got some sticks. That's birch bark.

I haven't got any fish and I'm getting to the end of it.

Doesn't look like there's any in there.

What I'm gonna do, this thing isn't catching here, you know.

I'm gonna move it.

I don't think this is the best spot.

If I'm gonna catch some fish right now,

I need to put this in an optimal location.

Time's wasting. Okay, I got my anchor out.

That'll hold my boat.

Now it's time to go look for a new spot to put this.

It really isn't cost effective to be driving like,

you know, four or five miles up and down the river

and not be catching any fish,

but what you got to look at is like the end of the season.

You need to figure this all up.

Well, I spent this much in gas,

but I got 3,500-4,000 fish put up for my dogs

and I got my winter supply of fish taken care of.

All right, I came a little further upriver here to check this spot out.

This is the spot. This is it.

I see markings from it.

I see from the old poles and a piece of rope hanging here

and what I thought was a little post. This is a...

This is a spot.

Nothing marks a fishing spot like an old can of beer.

You know, all the best spots are established already on this river.

It's got to be deep enough.

There can't be sandbars below it.

There can't be snags.

There's only so many spots like that on the river

without travelling a long distance.

I'm gonna give it a shot.

I'm gonna head back down to camp

and hope for the best here.

All right, so I set my net in a new spot.

Now I'm going up there.

Got to pull my net before fishing closes.

So I'm really hoping there's gonna be some fish in there.

I really got high hopes.

I'm hoping this spot is gonna catch some fish.

(MOTOR STUTTERS)

Cutting some corners on the river like I normally do

'cause this boat's good for shallow water,

trying to save some gas and nailed a sandbar.

(MOTOR STARTS)

Luckily this is an old-school, tough motor.

Made for taking abuse.

Go check this net.

I moved my net yesterday to a new spot.

Didn't catch any fish where I started at.

So, I got high hopes that this spot's gonna catch some fish.

I'm getting at the end of my 42-hour period of fishing here,

so, I got to pull this net after I check it

and I'm just hoping there's some fish in here.

It's not looking good so far though.

I don't feel any weight in the net.

It's a lot of effort put into this.

Lot of money spent and a lot of time.

Caught a lot of grass.

Nothing. Damn it! Nothing in here.

Zero fish to show for three days of work.

Oh!

What a bummer, man.

(GROANS)

It's kind of discouraging,

but this is just kind of how it goes.

To me, using a net, it's not optimal.

But it's not cheap to keep a bunch of dogs,

you know, like, I need these fish.

I can't give up on this. I got to keep at it.

Just hope and pray that I'm gonna catch some fish here soon.

AGNES: Well, we all try to help each other,

share with each other, respect each other.

Every one of us, a family.

We just got to keep moving faster.

That wind is really picking up already.

NARRATOR: A severe weather warning

has been issued for the Kiwalik River area.

Agnes and her daughters must work quickly to secure camp

before the strong winds force them to hunker down.

Careful, Idi, it might just blow right off.

I'll hold it, I'll hold it while you untie.

We're doing the best we can, working as fast as we can.

Lot of girl power here

and, um, hopefully it'll hold through the gusts.

There we go.

So that's what we're fighting, is wind.

Idi, if you go grab the other side and you pull that rope we put on.

Go pull your sister's other side.

We need to use that tarp as the weight for the tepee

and cover it up so the wind won't blow

and it'll be a little bit more heavier than that, um, canvas.

We almost got it.

Yee! We got it.

This one. We're doing good, girls.

Nothing's blown away yet, we're doing good.

Getting worried about those guys,

they never come back yet. Man, look how windy it get.

CHIP: I see you got an eider.

He's, uh... He's gonna be, like, having a freaking turkey.

You make me hungry.

NARRATOR: While the Hailstone girls secure camp,

Chip and his son, Jon, have gone down the river

to harvest vital wood and food to weather the storm.

CHIP: We ain't got enough wood for a couple nights,

so we ain't going nowhere 'til we got enough wood, but there's more down here.

The thing about the wind is that we get a wind-chill factor up here,

and when it's cold, it gets really cold

and if we have to be in a tent,

or if we have to work with wet things,

or if we have to go out and gather things from the tent,

we want to return to somewhere really, really warm.

Now it looks like we're beating the wind,

but the wind's creeping up on us.

I can see real windy clouds

and I feel an increase in the speed myself,

so I'm pretty glad I'm getting this part of it all done.

Once we're at camp, we can just work relentlessly there,

'cause we can always take a rest when we want.

But out here, there's not much to rest on,

so we'll get the heat done.

Right in front of you!

(GUNSHOT)

-(GUNSHOT) -CHIP: Ooh.

(GROANS)

That one was so close

I was afraid you were gonna hit it and just blow it up.

JON: Ah! There we go.

CHIP: Looks like we got our heat, we got our meat.

We need to get to camp.

We're gonna go chop it all up

and we'll use one to cook the other.

SUE: You can be as prepared as you can make yourself for any event,

and life's gonna throw you a curveball.

One of my pilots, uh, just informed me he was...

He had a bad smell in the room.

I got to check that out.

I can smell hot wire even from out here.

Ooh.

I mean, I ain't got no power here.

(SNIFFS) Yeah, you can really smell it.

(SNIFFS)

Huh.

I do not need this.

I've got plane comin' in, bringing me all my stuff.

All of my food, all of my appliances,

hot wires in a trailer and I got to shut power down.

Fucking unreal.

-(ENGINE REVS) -We have, uh,

an electrical issue in camp.

One of the trailers is reeking of hot wire.

Half the dining hall won't come on,

and we got a break in the electrical wires.

(MOTOR STOPPING)

I hate electricity. I hate it.

I can say it like two more times, I hate it.

NARRATOR: With power down, Sue is unable to communicate with the incoming plane.

She must fix the problem, or risk missing the delivery.

SUE: So it's all of this row is dead

and this side, anything that runs on that leg is now inoperable.

I've got a plane comin' in.

Tens of thousands of dollars wrapped up into it.

I am going up,

hopefully not down,

getting on the roof and following wiring.

I've got to follow the wires.

Some go this way and go into the gen shed that way.

Some branch off and go in here.

I've got to find out which of our offending wires are going where.

I inherited a system that was antiquated,

and I'm working on updating it

and I've been feeling very proud of myself. I still do.

I can still recognise, "Follow the wire, this is a problem."

But then it starts getting to where it's beyond my ability.

All right, so I'm gonna kick it on and send the power out.

(WHIRRING)

No power. Fuck!

There's a problem on this row.

I call 'em row one, row two and row three.

Two and three and doing good,

but this is still a problem child.

Following the line in, you can determine it's got to be here.

Weatherworn, cracked, dried.

That looks kind of burned out to me. Unsafe.

These are some of the harshest conditions

anywhere on the planet, to try and run a business.

Metal, plastic, parts, things break.

And they break frequently.

Power travels down what you call legs.

And one of the legs, this being part of that leg, seems to be the culprit.

I have no idea why this is going balls up now,

no idea at all. It just is.

You know, we've come to the end of my knowledge of electrical.

I don't want to be the one that burns camp down.

In the back of my mind, I'm risking the rest of camp if there's an unstable issue.

But if I don't risk it, I won't have power for anything.

The plane's coming in.

It's gonna be here. I don't have a choice.

What I did is I removed this entire line.

That's dead. That row is dead to me now.

Three trailers, gone.

Now that plane can land and I'm just gonna lose revenue on that row of trailers.

I mean, sometimes you gotta give a little to take what you can.

CHIP: As long as we hustle, we work hard and we get prepared,

preparedness will always win out.

-(GIGGLES) -Uh, where's all the wood?

CHIP: Ah-ha, where's your glasses?

I don't see caribou, but you guys got some birds.

Got a duck right here, a big eider

-and back there a black duck. -IDI: Oh, right on.

(IDI SPEAKING)

Yeah, please do.

This'll have to be skinned. The other one will have to be, uh, plucked.

Boy, ladies, they look like they're busy.

We got everything on the, of our little list of need-to-be-done, done.

I got more firewood than we're gonna need.

We would have liked to have gotten a few more ducks,

but that didn't turn out.

But that's enough to get us through a couple days

with potatoes and rice and whatever else we got.

Right on! Looks like dinner and some wood heat.

JON: Yep. Got an eider.

Eider?

JON: That's some dinner.

That's a big bird. Just right for a big, family-size meal.

Mary will go help you with those, son.

Or the little one at least.

I'm bringing more wood in.

CHIP: We finished up what we needed to do and I think we did it on time.

And tonight, we enjoy the heat and the meat and the tent.

Mary'll start the head, the wings, and the feet,

and then you can pluck it.

The heart's good.

It's real important for us to all work together.

We all start off our day, we make our plans

and we all work together to get everything done.

Everything's a lot easier when you can depend on people.

It's real cold in the wind chill,

so, we'll be staying here, staying warm.

Staying dry, staying out of the wind and staying well fed.

CHIP: I would say dinner's done.

You got some eider duck here, got some rice made.

It's nice to be in here.

-Nice and warm. -And out of the wind.

CHIP: Out of the wind, yep.

I would say we've done very well, working together.

AGNES: Good duck. Thanks, son. JON: Mmm-hmm.

-Thank you, honey. -CHIP: Yeah.

I'm glad to be warm.

And thank you for fixing this place up and keeping us out of the wind.

Jon got meat, I got heat

and you girls have got the weather beat.

JESSIE: I have an athletic bond with the fish

because, you know, I'm the same way.

I'm always roaming, always moving.

I'm back down here at camp, picking up my net.

I'm gonna go back and try to put it in a different spot upriver.

Fishing's back open now.

Get this net out now and hope for the best.

This will be the third time I've moved it.

I tried a few spots closer to town here,

trying to save some gas.

It didn't work out for me or pan out for me.

I come upriver further,

cut off some bends of the river,

search some slews so I could get up here.

It's gonna cost me a little more gas,

but I know there's not the competition upriver.

Fishing is just like this sometimes.

Nothing comes easy.

It just comes with diligence and hard work out here.

I don't think I've ever gotten anything too easy on this river.

Think that might be a good spot right there.

Yeah, looks good.

The river's narrow here.

Well, this has a really good rock bottom

and it's got a lot of depth here, so...

And it's got a swirling eddy where there's a back current comin' up.

Fish have just travelled a big, long bend of the river without any eddies in it,

and so I'm hoping that they're gonna stop here and rest here

as they're coming out of the eddy, that they'll go into my net.

I think this'll be a good spot.

I decided to come up here,

because I might spend more money driving my boat up here,

but I think this will be a more productive spot.

"Third time's a charm" would be nice here.

That should do it.

Fuck!

-(MOTOR STOPS) -Fuck!

Fuck me, man. God damn it!

Friggin' just tangled in my net.

Try to get out of this thing before I get pulled downriver here.

Shit.

Fuck.

I had some difficulties there.

My prop got hung up in the net.

The current was pulling me the wrong way.

It's a stressful situation.

Now all I can do is just leave it to do its magic,

and hopefully it's gonna catch fish.

SUE: I'd like to keep busy and I like challenges.

Not a day goes by I don't get one,

just sometimes not the ones I expect.

Zero wind, unlimited vis, bluebird.

All right, I'll see you down there, bro.

There is just that excitement and that buzz

any time I see a plane come in.

I feel charged up, 'cause that's why this is here.

That's why Kavik exists.

It wants to be the happy little place

that people can utilise for whatever they need.

Hey, guys.

(PILOT SPEAKING)

I know, I had, uh...

Seems like every five years I break myself.

I broke myself good this time.

You develop a relationship with these people.

Very close, tight-knit relationship. They care about me.

They were worried when they heard about my injuries.

Seeing me face-to-face lets them know I'm still alive.

You know, today just kind of wraps up

the epitome of the whole experience out here.

You have challenges that you have to meet.

The runway has to be done.

This has to be done.

I'm having electrical issues in camp.

The old food out, bam, the new food came in.

Bam, I can now charge the full rate for people.

Everything's in place, Kavik is open for business.

-PILOT: Ciao. -Thank you very much.

As always, you guys save my bacon

-and bring it at the same time. -See y'all later.

I got a bunch of good food in here.

Bunch of new appliances. It's a good day to be me.

JESSIE: You got to be prepared year-to-year,

week-to-week, to adapt to the changes of the river.

Heading upriver to go check my net here

and see how it's been doing. Left it in for a good bit.

I hope it's full of fish and not driftwood,

'cause I'd be very disappointed to have done all this work,

all these days here, and come up empty-handed for it.

(MOTOR STOPS)

Oh, I'm hoping there's some fish in here.

There's a fish. Oh, yeah!

All right.

There's a nice summer chum right there.

That's a good-looking fish, too.

It's a female.

It's gonna have some nice roe in there to eat.

I hope there's some more in here for the dogs.

I thought this was a better spot.

It is. There's a bunch of fish!

Yeah, that's what I thought it would do.

There's a whitefish! All right, a king?

You know, I've set this net three times,

I burned up a bunch of gasoline and this is...

This feels great.

And I knew this is how it was gonna be, I just had to keep after it.

There's another one.

Good deal. This net's catching them over close to shore, too.

That makes me feel like there's gonna be more fish

at the end of the net than there is here.

It doesn't get old to me

to pull up to a net or a fish wheel and see fish.

It's always an exciting feeling.

And I just started being overwhelmed with thoughts of cutting this fish

and putting it into a good eating food.

Got my net.

It's back where it needs to be, out in the water,

and take these home and cook up for the dogs

and eat some really good, fresh fish

and be thankful.

Now I got my fish all put up

and time to head down back to camp and get to work.

This is a great start to my fishing season.

But you can't get better than this.

The feeling of living on this river,

and it's good start to the fishing season for me.

Summer's just all about hard work.

I think of it as play.